Vitamin C
by Teris24
Summary: Five years after graduation, Tomo makes Osaka's dreams come true.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any Azumanga Daioh characters.

**Note:** Feh...whatever. The summer house is just a convenient metaphor.

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**Vitamin C**

Kagura and Tomo sat slouched and giggling on opposite sides of the couch in Chiyo's summer home. Both of them were dressed for bed, each wearing a T-shirt and a pair of boxers, and Kagura wearing a pair of bright orange socks.

On the floor in front of them, Yomi laid on her back with her hands folded on her stomach. She was dressed in a pair of pajama bottoms and Tomo's 'Wild' shirt. Her lips were parted and she stared at the ceiling as though a very interesting movie were playing on it.

At the table beside Yomi, Nyamo and Yukari sat across from each other with their right hands clamped together. They looked as though they were ready to arm wrestle, but they were laughing too hard to do much else. Chiyo and Sakaki had departed from this scene two hours earlier and not much had changed since.

Seven years had passed since the girls and their preferred teachers had made that first trip to Chiyo's summer home. Every summer since then they had made a tradition of coming to the house for one week, no matter where they might have been or what might have been going on in their personal lives. Ever since Nyamo's initial intoxication, the house meant an escape from ordinary routines and the chance (or excuse) to do things that they otherwise never would have dreamed of doing, or that they wanted to do but couldn't.

All of the girls but Kagura and Tomo were in their last year of college. Tomo had dropped out two years prior and was in the middle of training to become a police officer. Kagura had made it through one semester of college before her performance in the pool had won her an unusual amount of acclaim. She had gone professional and quickly earned the attention of big names like Pocari Sweat and CC Lemon. She was now four years away from retirement and ranked number six on Japan's list of millionaires under thirty. Yomi was in the middle of an internship at a medical institution in Hiroshima. Yukari had stopped teaching when she had gotten married three years ago. She rarely ever spoke of her husband and sometimes seemed to forget that she was married at all. Nyamo had also stopped teaching after Kagura's rise to fame had consequently brought herds of sponsors, representatives, and parents to her own front door. The school had requested her resignation after the harassment on school grounds became too much for their security to deal with. Having no real other skills beyond sports, she had opted to become a private swim teacher. At first she had boasted a waiting list of over two hundred people. In an attempt to cut this number she had increased her rates, and now at ten thousand yen per lesson, she had twenty active students that she each taught three times a week, and seventy-five on hold. Sakaki currently resided in Fukushima where she was taking prerequisite classes for vet school. A chance encounter with a photographer at a coffee shop had landed her a modeling job for a swimsuit magazine. She made more than enough to support herself, and though the editor of the magazine had begged her to renew her contract after she finished school, she had politely declined. Chiyo had early on decided that America was not the place for her. She had returned and gotten into Tokyo University where she studied anthropology and literature. Presently she was between boyfriends, her last one having broken up with her because of her seniority complex.

Tomo rolled her head to look at Kagura.

"You're right," she droned in reply to something that had been said half an hour ago.

Kagura continued to stare ahead. "Huh?"

"I said yeah."

"What?"

"I said that."

"Said what?"

"You're right."

"I told you."

"I forgot what you said."

Kagura burst with laughter and fell sideways onto the center cushion. "You're such a bitch."

At Kagura's outburst, Tomo laughed until her face turned bright red. She fell onto the other girl and then rolled off the couch to lay beside Yomi. Yomi remained unaffected by the antics. Her brow was furrowed like a physicist who was one step away from solving a mathematical problem that had been plaguing her for years. Tomo curled up on her side and buried her face into the rug. She laughed until she couldn't breathe, and that made the situation all the more hilarious.

Whatever Yukari and Nyamo had been doing (and it was doubtful that they themselves knew), they were unable to maintain it by the time Tomo began gasping for breath. They tried to contain their mirth, but within a moment they too were laughing to the point of physical weakness. Yukari slumped forward and laughed so hard that she didn't make a sound. Nyamo pointed at Yukari and tried to say something, but instead she fell back and clutched her arms around herself.

This continued for twenty minutes before silence settled back into the room. When she was finally able to, Nyamo sat up and leaned back against the couch. Yukari crawled over to her and laid her head in her lap, still giggling softly.

"Hey, where'd Osaka go?" Tomo asked and lifted up on her hands.

"She's outside," Yomi replied, closing her eyes.

"The Hell's she doing out there?"

"I don't know. You know how she is."

"Probably contemplating her existence again," Kagura said with a yawn. She stretched out on the couch and flopped an arm over her eyes.

"Again? Dammit! Who keeps inviting her here anyway?"

"I'd like to know the same about you," Yomi muttered.

Tomo stumbled up and went to the balcony doors. "I'm tired of her crap. Hey, Osaka!" She threw the doors open and leaned out.

Osaka stood on the balcony with her arms at her sides. She too was dressed for bed in her favorite pair of pajama bottoms and matching top, the one with a giant orange spiral in the center of it. Her hair had grown a few inches and was back in a pony tail, and perched on her nose was a pair of gold-framed glasses. A year ago she had suffered a small concussion when she had gotten hit by a car, and she had needed the glasses ever since.

After high school, Osaka had gone on to a college just outside of Tokyo. She had majored in philosophy for a year before dropping it and picking up linguistics instead. She had gone through two boyfriends before deciding that they really weren't such a big deal, and now she mostly spent her days in search of something greater than herself, much to the annoyance of those who wished to know her better.

She turned when Tomo called her.

"What is it?" she replied softly.

"You bother me! Get in here!" Tomo snapped and disappeared inside.

Osaka blinked. She took one last glance at the ocean and then followed the other girl, making sure to lock the door behind her. She then scanned the others in the room. Yomi was climbing onto the couch to sit beside Kagura who was drawing pictures in the air with her index finger. Nyamo was sifting her fingers through Yukari's hair, and Yukari seemed to be napping peacefully.

"Sit down," Tomo barked and pointed at the table as she went upstairs.

Osaka seated herself at the table and folded her hands in her lap. She didn't like it when Tomo ordered her around, but she knew that she would never be able to stand up to her. Tomo's bully-like behavior had only gotten worse with time, and that she was becoming a police officer was no real comfort to anyone who knew her. Osaka had learned her lesson two summers ago when she had denied a demand of Tomo's with a simple 'no'. Without warning, Tomo had punched her across the face and simply repeated the demand.

"What'd I do?" she asked.

"Don't pay any attention to her," Yomi said.

"You killed my buzz," Tomo shouted from one of the upper rooms. "It's always you and your 'why are we here' and 'why this' and 'why that' bullshit. Moron!"

"You're the moron. Leave her alone," Yomi shouted back. She stretched her arms up and yawned.

"You be quiet," Tomo snapped. A few moments later she stomped back down the stairs. She was holding what looked like a milk carton in her hand and attempting to poke a straw through the hole in the top. "Didn't you ever pay attention to those programs in school? This is about principles and everyone knows that friends don't let friends let friends who let friends let friends."

Yomi arched an eyebrow and looked at Nyamo. She expected her to say something about Tomo's behavior, but Nyamo seemed too busy gazing at Yukari.

Osaka frowned. "I wasn't bothering anyone. Thinking is just a pastime of mine, like daydreaming. There's nothing wrong with it."

"There _is _something wrong with it," Tomo retorted, "and I'm going to tell you why." She stormed to the girl and knelt behind her. She placed the carton on the table and then put her hands to the sides of Osaka's head. "I know all about the questions you've been asking. You mull them over and over until you get a headache, and then you go complain to somebody about how you couldn't get the answer and how you don't think that an answer exists and blah blah blah..."

"Yeah, but I wasn't the first one to-"

"It's a waste! The thing is, I've had the answers all along. I never said anything because I wanted to wait until you figured it out for yourself. Now I see that's not going to happen and I'm tired of being the only one around here who knows." She glanced at Yukari and Nyamo. "Or maybe I'm not the only one."

"But there _is _no answer."

"Shut up, my little Osakan larvae. It's easy. Everything that you've ever wanted to know has to do with the concept of reality. What is real? It's a simple problem, and there's a simple solution. You've just been viewing it from within the wrong plane."

"But I-"

"Shhh..." Tomo's expression turned calm and she pulled Osaka's hair from its ponytail. "Don't talk. Don't say another word or I swear to everything sacred in this world that I will make pain with your head. What you're going to do now is listen."

Feeling a reminiscent throb in her right cheek, Osaka only nodded.

"I'll tell you," Tomo whispered, resting her chin to the girl's shoulder. "I frequently come and go between this experience and the one you've been searching for. I could go there now if I wanted to, but I'm saving it for you." She grabbed the carton from the table and held the straw to Osaka's mouth. "Close your eyes and drink this."

Osaka looked at Nyamo and then to Kagura and Yomi. Yomi only shrugged and motioned for her to go ahead. It was unwise to rile Tomo when she was being like this, and the carton was probably just full of salt water or some other vile concoction.

Osaka did as she was told, closing her eyes and taking the straw between her lips. Yomi looked on and when Osaka didn't recoil with the urge to vomit, she frowned and sat forward.

"Hey, what'd you do," she asked.

Tomo ignored the question. When the carton was empty, she set it back on the table and then wrapped her arms loosely around Osaka's neck.

"Good," she murmured. "Now count backwards slowly. Forget numbers. There aren't any where you'll be going. Start with blue and work you way to black."

"Colors? You can't count colors."

"It's that way of thinking that's kept you a prisoner." She removed Osaka's glasses to cover her eyes with her hands. "Imagine that you've been blind your entire life. Think about those colors, the ones you experience. Not the ones you see. Blue is what happens on a hot day when you run cold water over your hands. Then there's a peach color that only comes once every Sunday morning, but only if you're just waking up at 9AM and realizing that you don't have school or work. Contrary to popular belief, red is what you feel when you discover a new song that you really love, and olive is what happens when you buy the album and find out that all the other songs suck. Beige is being the last one to take a bath and having to sit in lukewarm water. Pastel yellow is remembering something pleasant from your childhood that you hadn't thought of in a long time."

Osaka started to say something, but suddenly the blood rushed to the back of her head as though she were falling. Her mind began to swim and she dropped her chin in an attempt to alleviate the sensation.

"Hey," she uttered, absently clutching Tomo's wrists.

Tomo grinned and motioned for her to lay back. "Purple is my favorite. It's voicing an opinion and having others agree with it."

"What about white?" Osaka asked, her whole body beginning to feel as though it were made of led.

"I've never experienced it, but you can always tell the ones who have. It's everything that anyone could want, even if they've never wanted anything at all. It's like-"

Osaka opened her eyes and looked at Tomo. Tomo was saying something and she got the feeling that it might have been important. She tried to discern the words, but Tomo seemed to be talking slower and slower. Her voice deepened and drifted in and out. Eventually the only thing Osaka could make out was deep 'rorrrrrrorrrrrorrr' sound, almost like the grinding of a machine. Strange though it was, she began to understand the noise perfectly.

"Why didn't you say that earlier," she laughed and pushed into a sitting position. She stumbled up and touched her index finger to the middle of her forehead, then dragged the finger down to the center of her chest to create an invisible seam. Her skin peeled away from the seam until she could push it down like folds of wet leather. It dropped to the floor like a sack and she casually kicked it away. She should have realized this a long time ago. She had seen cartoon characters do this sort of thing all the time.

Being free of her skin was not enough. She grabbed handfuls of her innards and pulled them out, reaching up under her ribcage to grab her heart and lungs. She flung them all away and then proceeded to tug at her muscles. She heard the meat splat against the floor and watched as her blood drained freely from disconnected veins. She didn't stop until she was nothing but a skeleton with eyes, and then one at a time she began to pick at her bones. The last thing to go was her skull. She shook her head until her eyes broke from their sockets and then shifted away.

"I won't be needing you anymore," she said and crushed the eyes with what was left of her mind. When she looked around, she saw and felt nothing but emptiness. It was so disorienting that she was afraid to move. "I'm so used to having senses. I don't know how to see."

A sparkly black glob then approached her. It spoke to her in a series of pleasant hums and offered up what looked like two glass balls.

"What's this?" she asked and leaned to the spheres.

The glob hummed and adorned her with the spheres. She felt a slight pressure, and when she lifted up she could see everything in wonderful meshes of color. The colors took on forms that seemed vaguely familiar to her, though she was sure that she had never seen them before in her life.

"So this is reality...This is emptiness," she whispered. If her arms had still been there, she would have reached them out in an attempt to touch that which had never existed before.

From somewhere in the void there came a noise of music. The music had no sound in this realm, and Osaka decided that it was one of the most beautiful things that she had ever heard because she knew that she was not hearing anything at all. "This is what nothing sounds like...feels like." She couldn't detect the void with senses that she no longer possessed, so she used what was left of her energy to curl herself around it. She gripped the music and held it at the very forefront of her experience. "I'm holding music. Music can't be held, but now I'm something that can't hold music. If I can't hold the music and there's no music to be held anyways, what color is it? I've never felt this before." She rubbed herself with the silent melody and felt herself falling again.

After a time, she felt the urge to move. To take even one step would have been absolutely impossible. She couldn't fathom the concept of motion in this place. It was emptiness, and in emptiness there was no forward or backward. She was everywhere, and everywhere was with her all at once. The trick was not to move, but to collect the colors and appropriate them in different situations.

"I've got to feel..."

Her attempt at this landed her at the bottom of a bowl of rainbow medley. There were several more black globs standing around and swaying back and forth. One wisped by her and she knew that she had seen it before.

"Hey, wait," she called to it. "Can you help me?" She had no voice. Though she shouted, her every word emitted as only a dull groan that sounded very far away. She tried screaming, but the louder she screamed, the softer she sounded.

The blob eventually stopped and huddled down. It looked pleasant enough, humming every now and then to something that Osaka couldn't perceive.

Osaka forced herself to materialize at the blob. "I know you," she shouted, now unable to hear herself. She melted with the blob in an act that in her worldly body she would have called recognition and greeting. At once she felt herself falling in love with this new world of colors. This world was something empty and pure. It was so complex, and yet more simple than anything she had ever known before. She understood her position in this place and the position of others in relation to her. There was no such thing as oneself, and no such thing as separate experiences. All was one, and one was now her.

Outside of Osaka's experience, Tomo and the others looked on at the scene that continued to play out before them. Sakaki sat at the table while Osaka, naked and wearing a snorkel and a pair of swim goggles, stood behind her and pawed at her head like a cat.

"Sakaki! I can touch Sakaki!" Osaka cried.

Sakaki sat still and looked at the others with a silent plea for help. She was afraid to move lest Osaka get too excited and attack.

Yomi looked at Tomo. "What did you give her?"

Tomo scratched her head and checked the label of the carton. The label depicted an orange cat with a spout in the middle of its chest.

"Orange juice," she replied.

Yomo arched an eyebrow. "Orange juice?"

"Uh huh."

The girls watched as Osaka fell to the floor and started to writhe. She was drooling and gripping sporadically at the air.

"So what's orange then?"

"Uh..."

**

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Note:** Say yes to orange juice. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: **I don't own any Azumanga Daioh characters.

**Note:** This story was only supposed to have one part, but I thought of a reply and decided to give it a go. Language warning.

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**Vitamin K**

Osaka cracked open her eyes. The colors of the world she had visited were gone and replaced with a fuzzy grey hue. She was laying on the balcony in a mess of shredded newspaper and beer bottles. The diving mask was around her neck and she was clothed only in a large button up shirt that she had never seen before, and a pair of Kagura's boxers. Her entire body tingled and her muscles seemed extremely weak. Trying to lift her arms and legs was like trying to peel herself away from a floor covered in super glue. After several attempts she gave up and laid still.

She didn't know how much time had passed, but it was still dark outside and the light in the living room had been turned off. She closed her eyes and sighed. She should have known better than to trust Tomo. The wildcat had never been harmless a day in her life.

The balcony door slid open and Tomo stepped outside. Her hair was rumpled and her cheeks were slightly red. She was sweating walking with an unsteady gait. Along with her there came the scent of beer and something else that smelled like burnt husk. She paused when she saw Osaka.

"You're still out here?" she scoffed.

Osaka tried to turn her head and meet Tomo's gaze.

"I can't move," she replied.

"Yeah, that happens sometimes." Tomo staggered over to sit beside her and leaned back against the wall. From the pocket of her boxers she pulled out a crumpled pack of cigarettes and shook one out.

Osaka watched her. Without her glasses she couldn't see very well, but she knew that something wasn't right. Nothing was ever right when it came to Tomo. She listened to the sound of rumpling cellophane and then the click of a disposable lighter.

"Aren't you gonna help me up?" she suggested gently.

Tomo took a long drag from the cigarette and blew the smoke in her face. "I already did."

Osaka held her breath until the smoke dissipated. "That's not what I mean." Her voice expressed only the smallest hint of anger. She was afraid to express much more.

Tomo laughed and bent her knees up, forearms resting on top of them.

"Shut up. You know you liked it."

"It was mean."

"And you liked it. You should've seen yourself…Smiling like a fucking idiot."

"It wasn't real."

She sneered suddenly and smacked Osaka across the head. "Would you fuck off about that bullshit already? Give it up!"

The impact sent Osaka's head spinning and she nearly felt ready to throw up. Closing her eyes made the sensation worse so she focused on the closest thing to her face that she could see clearly, that being Tomo's left thigh. She quieted and waited for the world to stop swaying.

Tomo sat back and frowned. She sucked in another drag and expelled the smoke in a series of rings, watching them as they disappeared in the air.

"I didn't know you smoked."

She glanced to Osaka.

"I don't," she replied bluntly, inhaling another lungful. She brought the cigarette over Osaka's face as though she meant to let it drop. "This is a figment of your imagination, isn't that right? It's not real. Nothing is real."

Osaka looked to the door and prayed that someone would come to bring her inside, or at least take Tomo away from her. She had never trusted Tomo not to harm her, and this was especially true when Tomo wasn't in her right mind. She shut her eyes. The last thing she needed was to looked as afraid as she felt.

Tomo laughed and took one last hit from the cigarette before snuffing it against the ground. "Stupid Osakan. It's people like you that piss me off."

Osaka kept her eyes closed and tried to decide whether to say something or not. It wouldn't do her any good to get offended by someone more confrontational than herself. Tomo would have been only too happy to escalate an argument to violence, but she wasn't just going to lay there and takes jabs like a dummy.

"Don't say that," she said calmly. "Why do you have to be so mean?"

Grinning, Tomo narrowed her eyes.

"Oh, but how do you know I'm being mean?" she jeered. She grabbed Osaka under the arms and turned her onto her back. "Don't you mean to say that your perception of 'mean' isn't the same as mine? How can 'mean' exist if nothing is real?" She dragged Osaka back between her legs and leaned back against the wall.

The motion sent a tingling pressure throughout Osaka's body. Though she meant to protest the treatment, her body still felt ten times heavier than she was used to. Again she looked to the door and was crushed when she couldn't see anyone inside. One of Tomo's arms came around her waist and she could hear her lighting another cigarette.

"I always hated that about you," Tomo drawled, her voice dark and empty. "You can't just see things for what they are. You have to ask questions and then you actually try to convince me that this isn't real. This_ is_ real. What proof do you need? You think you can just step back and act like you're not a part of anything?"

"But didn't you used to-"

She snatched Osaka by the hair and wrenched her head back. "Shut up! You make me sick. I can't even look at you when you start talking about stuff like that."

Osaka's breath caught and she looked at the wildcat in the corner of her eye. Tomo's face was twisted with a fierce glare, the dangerous kind that she had seen before. It made her nervous, but she frowned and squared her shoulders as much as she could. If she was going to be a doormat, she would at least be one that kept to her opinions.

"I told you there's nothing wrong with it," she stated.

"And I told you that there _is_ something wrong with it. The world is rotting. It's a fucking cesspool of shit and blood and cockfaced people."

Tomo held her cigarette between her lips while she yanked away the diving mask and then undid the top button of Osaka's shirt. "People like you are a waste. You think it's so difficult to find your answers, and meanwhile the rest of us are working like dogs to keep ourselves afloat. People are suffering and you want to sit back and ask why. Or even worse, you want to tell them they're not."

Osaka looked at the fingers at her shirt and then back to the door. Her heart began to pound and she held her breath to try and keep it down. When the second button was tugged undone she grew tense and tried to lift her arms, but her muscles were incredibly weak. Instead she tightened her fingers where they rested against Tomo's knees.

"What are you doing," she whispered.

"You've seen everything of this world and one that doesn't exist, but you still can't see. I'm going to make you see."

Tomo undid the rest of the buttons and then pulled the shirt open. She took the cigarette from between her lips and held it like a pencil with the burning end facing down.

Osaka fixed her gaze on that cigarette. She forgot about trying to control her heartbeat and her breath quickened. Her cheeks flushed and her ears began to roar with blood.

"Tomo…"

"Proof is what you wanted right? I'll prove that you're here. You're here and this is real."

"You're drunk. You need to go inside."

Tomo lowered the cigarette until it rested an inch away from the soft span between Osaka's breasts. She tightened her other arm around the girl's waist and smiled, nuzzling the side of her neck.

"You're here with me," she whispered and crushed the cigarette against her.

Osaka was hard pressed to contain her squeal. Though it only took a few moments for the cigarette to burn out, the intense shot of pain on such a sensitive area seemed to last for minutes on end.

Tomo lifted the stub. Left in its place was a smear of ash and an angry red dot. She dropped it and shook another from the pack to light. "All life is suffering. Isn't that what you believe? Life is suffering. That's all the proof you need."

Osaka watched the second ember as it was brought to her chest.

"Stop it, please," she begged and tried to lift up. She did what she could to get her arms to move, but only ended up squirming against her antagonist who kept her in a vice like grip. The ember was touched to a spot a few centimeters below the first burn. She gasped and clawed her fingers into Tomo's legs. "Stop it!"

Instead of crushing the cigarette, Tomo twirled it slowly and let it burn out of its own accord. She smiled at Osaka's reaction, watching the delicate tufts of smoke that curled from the wound.

"It's ok," she murmured. "This is real. You're alive." When the stub stopped smoking, she dropped it and drew yet another.

Osaka heard the cellophane and began to panic. She arched her back and managed to bend her knees, but the exertion of so much energy made her feel sick. After only a few moments she had to fall back and catch her breath. Tomo waited patiently for her to give up before lowering the third ember, touching it below the second burn. Osaka could hear the soft sizzle of skin and she shut her eyes, turning her head away.

"Why are you doing this," she cried.

Tomo ground the cigarette in and leaned her head against Osaka's.

"I'm doing it for you," she said. "The reason that you can't accept this reality is because you haven't suffered enough. I'm bringing you life right before your eyes."

Osaka shook her head and tugged at the bottom hem of Tomo's boxers.

"This isn't reality," she replied, her voice beginning to shake. She had meant to say that the suffering of life was not at all like the suffering of cigarette burns, but it would have been impossible to argue this. If there was only one reality, and her entire issue was that she could not prove otherwise, then there could be no differentiation. Tomo was taking her logic and using it against her.

Tomo's grin faded. She dug the cigarette into the burn until Osaka yelped loudly.

"Fuck you," she hissed. "Fuck you and your realities. There is no false world. This is it, and you're in it."

Five cigarettes later, the pack was empty and Tomo picked up her lighter instead. Osaka now had a seam of dots down the center of her chest. Tomo clicked the lighter on and let the flame hover over them.

Osaka's eyes were glassy with tears. She was breathing hard and pushing herself as far back into Tomo as she could to try and escape the flame. After several failed attempts at moving the lighter away, her arms had curled weakly under Tomo's knees and her muscles trembled with the effort of keeping them there. Tomo skimmed the lighter down along her stomach and she felt her skin inflame and become gently seared in its wake. The pain was unbearable, and that it was constant made her want to scream.

"Tell me it's not real," Tomo whispered through her teeth. "Tell me you're not feeling anything."

"You're hurting me," she whimpered, her voice long broken.

"I would never hurt you. I would only make you suffer. The more you suffer, the more you understand."

"That's crazy! Let me go!"

"Crazy? You don't know the half of what crazy is. You don't even know what _this _is." Tomo grabbed Osaka's hand and brought the flame under her palm.

"I know what it is!" Osaka curled her fingers and tried to drag her hand away. Tomo let it drop and it landed back on her leg.

At last Tomo dropped the lighter and bent her knees slightly. She rested one hand to the center of Osaka's chest and the other to the top of her head, smoothing her hair back. The hateful sneer disappeared from her face and was replaced with the calm one that had been there before. She sighed and rested her chin to the shoulder below it.

"I've done everything I can for you, but I can only do so much. I only wish that I could make you suffer enough, and then maybe you might see."

Osaka gazed ahead, now more than ever wishing that she had her glasses. Tomo's voice was soft in her ear and her hand was cool against her chest. She tried lifting one of her arms and found that it was only slightly easier than it had been before. Her arm dropped and she closed her eyes. Earlier she hadn't understood Tomo's animosity towards her behavior, though she did at that moment when she remembered what night it was.

"Tomo," she whispered.

Tomo made no reply but dragged her nails down the middle of Osaka's chest to rest against her stomach.

Osaka winced and forced herself to keep still. No one was coming to help her because no one was in the house. They had gone to the summer festival. She turned her head towards Tomo and made sure to keep her gaze down. "You think that I don't understand…"

Tomo paused. Something in Osaka's voice made her skin run cold.

"…but I do."

She shoved Osaka away and grabbed her lighter before stumbling up. She kicked the crumpled cigarettes off of the balcony and then went to the door.

"If you tell anyone about this, I'll kill you," she said and stormed inside.

Osaka laid still on her side, almost in the same position in which she had woken up. Her strength was returning and it wouldn't be long before she herself could go inside, but for now she laid peacefully and closed her eyes.

She had been angry before, but now she realized how justified Tomo had been. It had been wrong of her to suggest in Tomo's presence that no experience in the empirical world could hold true significance. Now she would bear Tomo's seam for the rest of her life for a similar reason that Tomo would never again wear a kimono. In this way, their subjective realities were defined by suffering. Perhaps she could see after all.

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**Note:** I know what it seems like, but this isn't a Tomo/Osaka story. There's no affection taking place. 


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